Publicación Oficial de la Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Neurología, de la Liga Ecuatoriana Contra la Epilepsia y de la Sociedad Iberoamericana de Enfermedad Cerebrovascular

Cognitive decline

 

Impacto del Aprendizaje del Inglés Sobre los Procesos Cognitivos en Adultos Mayores. Un Estudio Preliminar en Cuenca

A descriptive exploratory study, before and after a six-month english learning course for seniors is conducted to evaluate the cognitive effect of learning another language in this age group in the city of Cuenca.

Materials and Methods: 80 adults of average age 70.48 ± 4.9 years (31 men, 19 women) were included; who underwent neurological and neuropsychological evaluation at baseline, six and twelve months after the course; including tests for executive function (working memory and attention processes).

Results: Data show significant statistical association between impaired olfactory perception related to age. Neuropsychological tests show interesting data relating cognitive maintenance and even improvement in the Performance Testing Direct and inverse series (Wais III) and Symbol Digital Modality Test (SMDT) six and twelve months after initiating a learning course of English.

Conclusion: The study suggests that learning English, even without functional objective of a new language, may have protective effect on the executive functions and neuronal brain networks are claimed the first findings in patients with cognitive impairment. We suggest perform this follow up long term in time to find strongest evidence, related to international bibliography.

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Conversión de Deterioro Cognitivo Leve a Demencia.

Great social efforts and sanitary conditions have decreased child mortality rates, decreased birth rates and increased life expectancy. Consequently, the proportion of adults has increased. The increased incidence of neurodegenerative disease such as dementia occurs in parallel to this demographic transition. Dementia may be associated with several risk factors. However, few studies have examined the rate of cognitive and functional decline.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of cognitive decline and dementia, risk factors and report results of cognitive and functional decline in patients in the National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery.

Methods: We included all outpatients aged ≥ 50 years attending between 1999 and 2000. We sought to asses the Petersen criteria for the mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Patients were assessed using the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edition), and the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke and the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association criteria. We followed for up to 8 years.

Results: A total of 239 individuals were included. The conversion of MCI was of 25.6% per year and 56.4% at the eight years. The consumption of alcohol were associated with dementias (p<0.01).

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La Memoria de Trabajo y su relación con otras funciones cognitivas en la Enfermedad de Parkinson.

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a neurological illness due to degeneration of the dopaminergic neurons of the nigro-striatal pathway. Each of the five frontal-subcortical circuits contributes in a different way to PD’s symptoms. The clinical manifestations are variable; they include non cognitive deficits like: rigidity, tremor, bradykinesia, and other motor deficits like hypomimic (mask-like face), hypophonia, dysarthria, dystonia and abnormal postures among others. The emotional disorders in PD include depression and anxiety. The frontotemporal dementia in PD has been described. The neuropsychological examination of the PD patient is done considering whether the main symptoms are bradykinesia and rigidity, since these patients show more severe cognitive decline. We must examine the attention, which is between the normal limits in simple tasks, but it shows deficits in more complex tasks; memory and learning are disturbed, orientation is intact; in verbal functions we evaluate vocabulary, syntaxes and grammar which are relatively intact, although the sentence length tend to be reduced; the visuospatial disorders are frequent in PD; thinking and reasoning must also be examined, in both of them there is normal performance and they show a realistic appreciation of their condition and limitations; the executive functions are evaluated, there are consistent failures in tests that require concept formation and thinking flexibility. PD treatment can be medical using L-Dopa, or surgery through techniques by lesion or stimulation to different surgical targets like the internal globus pallidus, the subthalamic nucleus, or the ventral medial thalamic nucleus, unilateral or bilaterally. The PD repercussions in working memory (WM) will be studied related to executive functions, speech, cronometraje, saccades and attention.

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